


more deadly than his right had been

by WolffyLuna



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Character adapts to serious permanent injury, Gen, Healing, Injury Recovery, Post-Angband Recovery, Prosthesis, with a smidgen of Chronic pain/illness doesn't stop character from kicking ass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28662444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolffyLuna/pseuds/WolffyLuna
Summary: Maedhros adjusts to his new lack of a hand, and the prosthetic Curufin made him.
Relationships: Curufin | Curufinwë & Maedhros | Maitimo
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27
Collections: Bulletproof 20/21





	more deadly than his right had been

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThatScottishShipper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatScottishShipper/gifts).



> Quick canon notes for people who are reading this canon blind: Maedhros is the eldest of the seven sons of Feanor, who was one of the Elvish kings. Maedhros was captured by Angband -- think 'Mordor, but run by Sauron's old boss'-- and was for an unspecified time hung from a cliff wall by his right wrist. He gets rescued, but his right hand had to be cut off to get him off the cliff face. This fic is set post rescue.

Maedhros considered doing something seriously ill advised to stop being so bored. He considered himself patient. Not easily bored or restless. But this enforced stillness, enforced rest, was a new kind of boredom less tolerable than any other had had experienced before. Previous boredoms had involved having nothing _to_ do. This involved having nothing he _could_ do.

And previous boredoms had involved less pain stretching the hours like taffy, making you wish for a distraction in any spare moment so less of one’s attention was on the slow healing of joints and muscle and bone and skin and nerves.

Unfortunately, at this stage of his recovery, anything that isn’t sitting in bed quietly or maybe sleeping was ill advised in and of itself. (And considering the fact that he had managed to aggravate the injury to his shoulder by sleeping incorrectly, even sleeping was an activity to be managed with care and precision.)

The healers had at least made noises about maybe clearing him to go outside unsupervised. Maybe even do things while.

He couldn’t wait.

Curufin opened the curtain surrounding his pseudo-room in the healers text, and walked, carrying a wooden box.

Company was good. Company was one of the few distractions he was capable of, even if his social skills were rusty from the long years in Angband. And while his younger brothers could be a frustration at times, he did _like_ them.

“Ah, you’re awake,” Curufin said.

“Good to see your observation skills are as sharp as ever.”

It was a poor joke, but Curufin at least deigned to give him a brief sharp toothed smile in acknowledgment of it. He put the box onto Maedhros’ lap. The box was, by the standards of Valinor, simple, but by the standards of here, with its much more limited time and resources, it was fine work. And it was merely the _container_ for whatever Curufin was showing or giving him.. “I don’t expect you to take it, or use it, if you do not want to. It was partially an exercise in craft,” Curufin said. “But also a gift.”

Maedhros opened the box slowly, somewhere between curious and dreading it by force of habit. Some of it was habit built by long years of Angband, where nothing new could be _good_ , and some of it was because Curufin rarely said out loud that a gift could be refused. It implied a certain amount of risk. And he looked alarmingly hopeful, too. It raised the stakes.

Inside the box was an artificial hand. It wasn’t designed to look like flesh, and more like a gauntlet, with red enamelled metal, and a black eight pointed star of Feanor etched onto the back of it. It attached to something that looked like it was based of a vambrace, but with a soft leather sleeve inside. 

“I thought it may be useful. Or not.” He shrugged. “You would know better than me.” 

He honestly didn’t. He’d missed his right hand often, felt the phantom of it, either twisted by pain, or faintly confused when he was half asleep about why he couldn’t use it to pick up things. But this was not the same as the original. It couldn’t be. But he allowed himself a small, foolish glimmer of hope that it might pass muster.

He picked it up and tried to put it on.

Curufin reached out to help, but paused midway, not wanting to intrude where he should not.

“—I would appreciate it,” Maedhros said.

Curufin helped him put it on, slowly, focusing more on showing him how to put it on without saying as much, than on getting it on. He’d obviously put some thought into the design, made sure the buckles for the vambrace part were easily reachable and useable with one left hand.

Curufin leaned back when he was done, half admiring his own work and hoping for a good reception.

The first thing Maedhros noticed was the weight, as he experimentally lifted his arm. It made sense, logically. His hand had been flesh and had been just a hand, this was metal and leather and had to cover more of his arm as well as be a hand. His shoulder complained about the weight, but it would complain even if it had no weight but its own to support, and he was not going to let his shoulder get in the way of the experiment.

“The fingers can hold their position,” Curufin said, very deliberately not offering to demonstrate.

Maedhros bent the right index finger, experimentally. Let go.

It stayed exactly where it was.

Maedhros mind buzzed at all the possibilities inside that one little finger tip staying bent. He tried to curb his excitement. This would not be perfect, would not solve all his problems. But it would be definitely worth investigating. “Thank you,” he said.

Curufin waved a hand in front of his face. “It is only fair that I try to help,” he said, uncharacteristically dodging the praise. “And let me know if there are any design flaws, and I can see about fixing them.”

“Still. Thank you.”

***  
  


The prosthetic was very well made, and functional. Maedhros would not dream of claiming otherwise.

But it also was not the same as his old hand.

Everything with it was just more of a _production_.

To pick up a cup, he needed to put his artificial right hand near it. Use his left to close the fingers. Take his left hand away. Lift up his right hand.

\--realise he hadn’t closed the fingers tight enough. Watch as the cup slipped out his grip, and scramble to get his left hand to catch it. Take a breath, try again with a tighter grip. Drink.

His left hand was clumsy and weak, and using it felt subtly off, like they were somehow completely different from the fingers of his old, removed right hand. Did not move like he felt they should. He’d use the same movements, but the result would be inelegant and awkward.

But, without thinking or planning that hard, he could just pick up a cup with his left.

***

This was not say the prosthetic did not have its uses.

Writing with his left was an exercise in spidery, slanted, unreadable writing, and headache from having to _think_ about reversing the Tengwar. He still practiced it anyway. Out of a sense of stubbornness and independence, a fierce desire to be able to write with only his own body and no outside aid—and he would admit, an equally fierce fear that something would go wrong, that he would be left with a useless prosthetic and would have to grit his teeth and work around it. He hoarded any single scrap of independence he believed he could hold onto, guarded his autonomy like rare treasure after losing it in Angband.

Writing with the prosthetic still took adjustment, and his handwriting still wasn’t as precise and neat as it used to be. He could no longer use fingers and wrist to form the shapes, had to use his shoulder. It was more effort—in some ways even more effort than trying with his left— and too long a stint would aggravate his shoulder-- but it had a better result. More readable.

More like it used to be.

***

It is an agonisingly long wait, but finally, finally, he is allowed to go back to the practice fields. Allowed to train and use his body and get back to being combat ready.

(There were questions among the healers about whether he should. Whether his body or soul would be able to withstand the strain fighting, and should he instead stay inside quietly for the rest of his life? The grim determination in his glare ended that line of questioning.)

He weighed up wearing the prosthetic. It could be a useful experiment to see if he could grip a sword, use it, with that hand. (Though previous experiences with cups made him doubt his ability to hold onto it, which was a distinct problem when it came to wielding a heavy and sharp piece of metal). It would be good to get used to his new balance, the extra weight on his right side.

...but equally it would be good to learn to wield with his left hand, to take the first step to removing its weakness, and at least then he could be confident of his grip. And it would be good to practice with his other new balance, the missing mass on his right, the shorter length of his arm. (And again—what if something happened to the prosthetic.

His shoulder made the decision for him. It refused to take any extra weight without the joint feeling like he had poured ground glass into it. And maybe that was a sign he should rest, try again another day—but he had waited so _long_. He was _going to do this_. And his left shoulder was being positively charming and obedient by comparison.

He walked into the training grounds. People carefully didn’t comment, because rumours had quickly spread that pity would lose you his respect, and few among their camp wished to lose the respect of Feanor’s eldest. But there was quiet watchfulness that settled over the area like a shroud.

He did his best to ignore it. Picked up a training sword—metal, and the true weight, but blunted.

It felt heavier. He couldn’t tell how much of it was his left arm always being weaker, or how much of it had been the years in Angband and the months in recovery. It didn’t matter. Weakness was weakness, and could be resolved by well thought out practice and training.

Despite his desire to jump straight into it, and start sparring, he started working through forms instead.

It took both physical and mental effort. Re-teaching muscles that had either never had or lost the muscle memory, remembering to reverse the position of his feet to accommodate his new handedness, thinking through every movement so he did not teach himself bad habits.

But it was thrilling to have a sword in his hand again. Both as a sign of recovery—that he could do this, that his body was hale enough that he could be outside and wield a sword.

But also a symbol of power. Angband had tried to grind him down into nothing, into someone who could not even think about doing anything, let alone trying. They had come close, as much as he would not want to admit it...but they did not succeed. He was free, and soon he would be able to take up arms against them.

(And they would learn to fear him.)

He saw Curufin walk past the training field out of the corner of his eye.

 _I wonder how he feels about me not using the prosthetic._ He had said that he did not care, that if he put it in a chest to collect dust, that it would not be his problem. And he would have known the limitations (and potential risk of sword flinging) on his own. But he also had a craftsman’s pride. Maedhros knew that.

But instead, Curufin had a small smile. Like he was happy to see Maedhros out and about, doing things, being alive and with them and not collecting dust in a chest like his prosthetic might.

And, well—he both appreciated agreed with sentiment. He returned the smile, though it might had had too much teeth.

***

He ended up wearing the hand about as often as he did not. Sometimes he wanted to write to someone and not have to reverse the Tengwar himself, or hope that the readers were able to read it reverse. Sometimes during meetings and diplomacy, a show of healing and hiding evidence of Angband was necessary to project the right image, no matter how much it stuck in his craw. Sometimes just because being vaguely symmetrical appealed to his vanity, and there was nothing wrong with the occasional fit of vanity.

But other times, his right shoulder refused to bear the weight and he felt no reason to have a fight with it. (It was like a half-retired warhorse: curmudgeonly and often unwilling to work, but he had developed a deep affection for it when it was a more faithful partner, and an affection he did not see any reason to give up now.) And there were times when the shoulder could take it, but the prosthetic would have just been dead weight. Pretty, but not useful.

And in time he got used to it. His reshaped body became less of a new imposition and torment and more something he was used to working around and with. Sometimes, he even forgot he had ever had an original right hand, too used to the phantom and prosthetic.

And with time and practice, his left become deadly to orcs than his right had ever been.

**Author's Note:**

>  _There Maedhros in time was healed; for the fire of life was hot within him, and his strength was of the ancient world, such as those possessed who were nurtured in Valinor. His body recovered from his torment and became hale, but the shadow of his pain was in his heart; and he lived to wield his sword with left hand more deadly than his right had been._ \- JRR Tolkien, The Silmarillion.


End file.
